Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:Full text of Obama's speech to Congress and the nation — Here is the text of President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress, as released by the White House moments ago: — Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States:

Obama: ‘Day of reckoning has arrived’ — We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth …

Jindal accuses Obama of pessimism — The early excerpts of Bobby Jindal's response to Obama's State of the Union are largely standard fare, but the conclusion strikes an interesting note — one hinted at recently by Bill Clinton — accusing the president, basically, of pessimism...

In Phoenix, house prices have declined more than 45% from the peak. At the other end of the spectrum, prices in Charlotte and Dallas are only off about 9% from the peak.

Prices fell at least 1% in all Case-Shiller cities in December, with Phoenix off 5.1% for the month alone! ...

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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:On So-Called “Irresponsible” Borrowers – Along with the absurd, Santelli-led revolt of the overclass against efforts to help middle class homeowners, there’s been a larger sense that “reasonable” people can all agree that there’s “plenty of blame to go around” and that on some level “irresponsible borrowers” deserve to take their lumps in all of this. I have my doubts...